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May 27, 2015

Relativism’s Moral Hero Disproves Relativism

In a world that happened to begin, where only dead matter existed at the beginning, and where physical forces happened to bring some of that matter together in a particular way such that it now moves around on its own, the concepts of “right” and “wrong” are meaningless fictions.

Sure, there might be an objective way for the collections of molecules we call “humans” to live that will enable those humans to live longer or maximize their pleasurable feelings, but there is certainly no obligation to do so (and nothing to say that either living longer or having pleasurable feelings is something that ought to be done; they’re merely possibilities). Obligation requires a personal Rule Giver to whom we’re rightly obligated, who will hold us accountable to that obligation. Without obligation, without a higher objective standard of the way things should be, without a mind above us and before us, there isn’t properly a “right” and “wrong.” There are merely things we choose to do or not do because of preference.

In this world, who are you to judge anyone’s preferences?

If one begins with atheistic materialism, relativism is the logical conclusion. And yet, we find that this relativism doesn’t match up with what we apprehend to be true about the moral aspects of reality. From Greg’s book on relativism:

Given a particular standard of morality, the person who is most moral is the one who practices the specific system’s key moral rule consistently…. [T]he quality of the moral hero—the one who most closely lives the ideal—indicates the quality of the moral system.

What kind of moral champion does [individual] relativism produce? What is the best that relativism has to offer? What do we call those who most thoroughly apply the principles of relativism, caring nothing for others’ ideas of right or wrong, those who are unmoved by others’ notions of ethical standards and instead consistently follow the beat of their own moral drum?

In our society, we have a name for these people; they are a homicide detective’s worst nightmare. The quintessential relativist is a sociopath, one with no conscience. This is what relativism produces.

Something is terribly wrong with an alleged moral point of view that produces a sociopath as its brightest star.

If there are no binding moral facts higher than the individual, then even the sociopath is moral. And placing the standard on society rather than the individual doesn’t get you out of this mess. If there are no binding moral facts higher than a society—if the community is the moral standard—then even Nazi Germany was moral. At least, those who went along with the Nazis were moral. Any German who resisted them was being immoral. And who are you (or any other country) to say Germany was wrong?

Relativism is a mess any way you look at it. Any worldview that lacks the ability to explain what we know to be true—that there are objective moral facts, regardless of whether an individual or an entire society rejects them—is devastatingly deficient.

Comments

Greetings Guest!

What are your thoughts on this real life scenario?

Recently my son completed a very large project, and received some cash. As summer is almost upon us, he thought it would be nice to have a new water gun. I agreed that he could use part of the money to buy a water gun. We went to a toy store, browsed a bit and purchased the gun.

When we arrived home, I told my son I would go inside and get a screwdriver to open the battery compartment on the water gun (yep, a water gun that takes two double A batteries!).

My son said, “Don’t worry about it dad, I’ve already opened it.”

I asked him “How?”

He said “With this!” He held up a VERY nice brand name multi-tool. My son then said “I found it on a shelf at the toy store! How lucky is that!” This particular multi-tool would be extremely helpful in bike assembly, and it looked used, but not ‘old’ so to speak.

An online search of available items at this store revealed that they did NOT sell this particular item. Take note that we were together the whole time and I also had my two other children with me.

How would you respond to your son, and what actions would you take...if any?

Whatever the Moral Skeptic's reply to Robert is, it will sum to a Noble Lie at best. It will be a sort of "as-if" useful fiction.

The Moral Skeptic mistakenly asserts that there is no Singular Moral Archetype which subsumes all moral vectors - he mistakenly asserts that Numbers and Morality don't house the same mathematical coherence with reality - but he has to assert such in order to evade God.

His eliminative materialism does not - in fact cannot - stop at the three geometrical vertices of being's singular, moral, Archetype, but if you push him far enough he'll be just as eager to dive into the abyss of illusion in all that sums to mathematics or any other contour of perception.

Count on it.

The request of the Archetype is a smokescreen. We know this because there the Archetype is unavoidable - pan-world, pan-history, subsuming all moral sentences.

As for the Moral Skeptic, at best all he has is the following Comedy:

E. Feser discusses the assertion that the Largest Portion of Man’s Intuitional Bell Curve counts as morality. Such a statistical bell-curve appeal to intuitions as the basis for Naturalism’s Justice and Morality housed in feelings fails for many reasons, many of which are touched on in the linked essay. Reason’s sought-after “proper goals” for Mankind which it (Reason) ought to pursue find Hume (rightly) granting nothing of the kind in Naturalism’s “Human Nature-ism”. Neither Hume nor logic find any such thing as love’s categorical imperative at the end of naturalism’s insolvent chain of IOU’s which obligates reason to chase after her. The phrase “Morally Unreasonable” ends in a comedy’s monologue in that we find Morality chasing Logic and Logic chasing Morality and, either way, we end up with said comedy – one insolvent chain of IOU’s chasing its own tail which happens to be another insolvent chain of IOU’s.

Just as Numbers and Mathematics force us to dive into the triad consisting of the material order, the mind-dependent, and the mind-independent, so too all that is perception period in like manner carries us either into the bizarre world of Platonism and thus at least some degree of convergence amid said triad, or into eliminative materialism’s Useful Fiction and its very own unintelligible solipsism’s annihilation of all convergence within said triad, or into the ontological seamlessness and logical lucidity through and through said triad which the means and ends of Theism afford.

No bare assertion of moral contours ever need be levied as the means and ends of this or that argument. Why? Because observational reality affirms the very sum and substance of all moral vectors. Mankind’s brutally repeatable motions within that very same sum and substance of those very same moral vectors affirm with mathematical reproducibility the fact that “….there has never been, and never will be, a radically new judgment of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems or ……ideologies…… all consist of fragments from the [whole] itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the [whole] and to it alone such validity as they possess…...... the human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of planting a new sun in the sky or a new primary color in the spectrum.....” (C.S. Lewis)

And there it is.

One, singular Frame in which all moral codes converge and all without violating love’s enigmatic contours.

But how?

Trinity’s Image just is Man’s (now fragmented) Image here in the Created Order and all moral sentences, all moral statements, and all moral vectors therein and thereby emerge as Lewis astutely alluded to, “Fragments from the whole itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation.”

But what are those “fragments” and how is it they are all subsumed by the one, singular frame that is the Triune God’s Image transposed to Man? How is it that all moral codes or all moral vectors are ipso facto assimilated into one, singular incantation and all without violating love’s contours?

As soon as one spies the Trinity, or perhaps, more specifically, Trinity’s interior milieu, one begins to discover, perceive, the fact that there are no other moral vectors possible, and also, that all moral vectors converge here in our moral experience with the same brutally repeatable un-deniability of, say, having a head or of, say, 2 and 2 summing to 4. The objective mathematical sums amid exacting calculations of geometric regressions bring us to a perfectly transposed precision in all moral vectors unavoidably converging in what sums to the very contours of the Triune God’s sum and substance of reciprocity housed in His immutable love.

But how?

As the relational lines therein emerge we begin to see three specific contours, or, if it helps (and it does), three specific vertices, which, if wrenched from their context in the whole and swollen to madness in isolation, comprise all possible moral semantics, all possible moral vectors.

There are no moral linguistics – anywhere – ever – which sum to something other than said vertices. That is to say, all moral truth predicates are nothing but one of three fragmentations of the Whole and as such it is the case that one, singular Frame subsumes every possible moral sentence and in fact there never has been less than or more than this in the history of the world. We find here, unfortunately for the Relativist, brutally repeatable measurability which affirms that the human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of planting a new sun in the sky or a new primary color in the spectrum. There is no moral sentence, no moral line, no moral vector – anywhere – ever – which sums to anything but one geometrical vertex out of three possible geometrical vertices.

C.S. Lewis tells us that in Man’s moral lines all possible vectors are – substantively speaking – fragments of a larger whole and he there alludes to the truth of all things as the three vertices of relationality emerge in one, and only one, Genre on planet Earth, in one, and only one, God on planet Earth, in one, and only one, Moral Frame (singular) on planet Earth.

What are these three vertices of being discovered in the immutable love of the Necessary Being?

What are these three vertices of relationality which subsume all moral motion whatsoever, anywhere, ever?

We already know the answer – it is not as if we are talking here of that which we *do* but, rather, we are speaking here of that which we in fact *are* and that always – in all cases. In fact, our entire reality cannot escape these three vertices – God having decreed His Own Image.

As we unpack this we discover something even worse for the Moral Relativist: no one is amoral because no one can be amoral. Where Atheism finds necessary stasis, Theism – well – Christianity – finds necessary motion. And that is the state of affairs on the grounds that God, or Ultimate Actuality, is not amoral but instead – at the end of ad infinitum where our (the created being’s) Moral First Cause is found – is necessarily relational within the Triune God.

Discovering our three vertices of being just is discovering those three vertices along which all moral vectors travel which just is discovering the Christian God’s unique, stand-alone truth predicates. The brutal repeatability of numbers, mathematics, and geometry is intellectually gratifying to say the least.

It is a peculiar fact that should we ask of Trinity, “Can we spy therein such motions and contours as comprise the stuff of, the essence of *Self* for our first vertex?” we are forced to answer in the affirmative. Just the same, it is a peculiar fact that should we ask of Trinity, “Can we spy therein such motions and contours as comprise the stuff of, the essence of *Other* for our second vertex?” we are again forced to answer in the affirmative. Just the same, again for relationality’s necessarily triune geometry, it is a peculiar fact that should we ask of Trinity, “Can we spy therein such motions and contours as comprise the stuff of, the essence of the *Singular-Us* for our third vertex?” we are of course forced to answer in the affirmative.

1) Where is that moral contour such that some magnification of the essence we know as The Self is ripped out of the whole and, by privation, by isolation, is swollen into madness? Yes, look, there is a palpable degree of genuine good therein – yet – there is somehow some lesser something.

2) Where is that moral contour such that some magnification of the essence we know as The Other is ripped out of the whole and, by privation, by isolation, is swollen into madness? Yes, look, there is a palpable degree of genuine good therein – yet – there is somehow some lesser something.

3) Where is that moral contour such that some magnification of the essence we know as the Singular-Us is ripped out of the whole and, by privation, by isolation, is swollen into madness? Yes, look, there is a palpable degree of genuine good therein – yet – there is somehow some lesser something.

There are no other moral contours, semantics, vectors.

None.

Anywhere.

Such mathematically precise geometry –that is to say – such inescapable vertices of being ripped out of the whole and in isolation swollen into madness sum to what we call privation, or, as others have it, the insufficiency of being. This Singular Archetype is found embedded pan-world and pan-history and in fact Pan-Actuality given the Christian’s unparalleled paradigm of the Triune God and further there is no more than this just as there is no less than this in all moral regressions, all moral semantics. Our mathematical equations of love’s geometry find an even greater – perhaps infinite – degree of predictability’s power in the unavoidable fact that but for the Whole that just is the immutable love of the Necessary Being, that just is the enigmatic singular/triune Self-Other-Us beautifully discovered therein, our own “ontological fragments” themselves would be void of what we call semantic definition and yet it is His very contours which circumscribe, limit, and delineate all possible moral vectors. It is uncanny that this is exactly the precision we expect, predict, and discover.

Such contours, plural, in seamless – ceaseless – reciprocity, singular, are found in the logical lucidity of the metaphysical and theological regressions of Christianity’s peculiar Triune God, the God Who is love.

Mathematics, Reality, Perception, Objectivity, and the question of Personal Identity, or that which is Self and thus unavoidably of that which is Other and thus unavoidably of that which is the singular Us – that is to say – the three geometrical vertices of being – carry us – along with mathematics and all other perception levied atop reality – to the famous Ship of Theseus and the stuff of persistence, change, and sameness and thereby into the very objectivity of all such realities (which as we’ve seen objectively begin and end unavoidably objective moral semantics).

We find – eventually – on all such fronts vis-à-vis Atheism/Materialism the same annihilation of objectivity in Numbers and Mathematics as we do in Personal Identity – and for all the same “reasons”, again vis-à-vis Atheism/Materialism’s a priori commitments.

If one thinks the Atheist’s / Materialist’s eventual annihilation of mathematical constructs atop the altar’s sacred fire of eliminative materialism from which the holy vapors of illusion fatefully effervesce is somehow his “stopping point” – then one must think again.

The Moral Skeptic’s appeal to Numbers – and so on – sums to nothing more than a smokescreen. Given the objective reality that is Personal Identity which fills the truth predicate “I-Exist” with, yes, objective reality – we begin to find – again – the three objective vertices of being – of unavoidably objective moral semantics all verifiably converging in one, singular Archetype – in the very same arena as mathematics, numbers, and so on as coherence with reality traverses perception.

“What is it that makes it true that you are one and the same person as your 8-year-old self, despite the bodily and psychological changes that you have undergone since you were that age?”

A little background helps us perhaps peer a bit further into the materialist’s full and final elimination of all that is the mind – and thus of all objective any-things whatsoever. There is some here and also here and also here.

As for Abstract Objects and as for Platonism and Moral Realism, and as for Theistic Anti-Realism and also Propsitional Truth, well, the Theist finds in Trinity the intellectual satisfaction of logical lucidity through and through, that is to say, ontologically and substantively speaking, from A to Z. The transposition of Logos finds Mankind rationally discovering the singular (Morally) Objective Archetype as Trinity and Reality converge in the three geometrical vertices of Being.

You still havent provided any form of argument for objective moral principles/facts/values beyond bald assertions they exist.

Guest, here are assertions that objective moral principles/facts/values exist. They are made by you:

Why do we tend to see an act of rape as immoral? Some rule that says so? I very much doubt it. Most of us never come across such rules, let alone think of them while on the spot, in the moment. Instead we simply see the signs of, and through empathy imagine and feel, distress in the one we immediately identify as the victim.

Rape is immoral.
Empathy is the standard by which we should judge good and bad.
Distress is bad, and it's morally right to rectify the distress of victims.

I disagree with most of the misogynistic, homophobic, racist tones of the bible.

Misogyny is wrong.
Homophobia is wrong.
Racism is wrong.

And again, you repeatedly cite empathy as the moral standard everyone "knows" we ought to use.

If, in fact, you don't think there's any objective morality, then you should stop saying things that assert objective morality.

I have one quick thing to add, Guest. The fact that you can't help asserting objective morals, even though the reasoning from your worldview leads to the opposite conclusion, goes to show this: We apprehend the quality of good and evil—i.e., the fact that moral truths exist—just as we directly apprehend other truths about reality that don't need to be "proven" to us. This is why even you can't help but speak in objective moral terms, even as you try to argue the opposite.

So in the end, your comments are a perfect illustration of this post. Not only do they contradict your own view (showing your worldview to be lacking), but they also show that "relativism's moral hero" is lacking—because "relativism's moral hero" would say that empathy is as "good" a standard as anything else, and that following the Bible's morals is the same as following any other morals. He would also say that you have no right to judge the Bible, since "oughts" are subjective and decided upon by individuals or societies.

In short, based on your statements, you wouldn't think "relativism's moral hero" is particularly moral.

"Merriam-Webster Dictionary - "based on facts rather than feelings or opinions : not influenced by feelings. philosophy : existing outside of the mind : existing in the real world" Dictionary.com - "not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased:"

You think objective morals are out there to be discovered - I dont. You think its like arriving at some destination, but I dont think one would ever know one is there.

So all your examples above arent examples of objectivity at all. Im not asserting objective morals, Im offering opinions and those are subjective. So no, Im not speaking in objective moral terms. This is not like the definition of a metre. Lack of objective meaning =/= lack of meaning - concepts such as 'good' 'bad' have no objective meaning and I dont see why this is a problem.

"Rape is immoral" is a great example of that; if that were an objective moral fact then you wouldn't have to defend God condoning/encouraging rape in the Bible.

Fortunately neither rape nor slavery are found condoned in Scripture. Parents need not approve of the marriage - that is they can refuse in all permutations - and the indentured worker who so much as suffers the loss of one tooth goes free. There's quite a bit more to be said in those two arenas but the facts seem unimportant to the Moral Skeptic. That is to say - there is more to be said there in Moses even as *Scripture* in both the OT and NT defines Moses as the Means to an X that sums to far *less* than Moral Excellence - but we need not torture the Moral Skeptic with Scripture's (factual) metaphysical lines nor with its historicity and genre.

Unfortunately for said skeptic all such lines objectively delineate one of three possible (objective) vertices of Personal Identity as God's Triune relationality converges with our (literal) reality thus revealing all moral values to be merely fragments of one objectively verifiable Archetype.

But the Moral Skeptic won't do his homework in historicity's lines - just as he'll eventually follow Personal Identity to his material stopping points there in illusion - there in the disappearing-self. He *must* make such moves - lest Personhood/Identity - sum to the unavoidable objectivity filling "I-Exist" with that same objectivity of Being's three - and always three - vertices.

Such "undeniability" he will - at some ontological seam somewhere - deny - else God - even as he unknowingly agrees with Scripture's definitions of Moral Excellence.

Yes, God fortelling of this or that evil coming to this or that nation. Fortelling of a war, and so on, and/or "The problem of Evil" - per your read here - is "God does it", or, "God likes it", or, both.

Such occasionalism is a bit comical.

Especially since it has to violate Scripture's definitions both of prophetic lines and of Moses' insufficiency failing to sum to Moral Excellence - per the definitions and demarcations of the OT and NT.

That said, you're left with "I-Exist" suffering the fate of the disappearing-self - you know - it's not objectively real.

Your reading comprehension is atrocious. You attempt to draw out a contradiction from what I said about Jones and Smith and how I defined "objective" by the dictionary.

The definition of objective I provided from the dictionary talks about the conditions upon which the truth value of a proposition are determined.

My story of Jones and Smith talks about the conditions upon which their *belief* correctly corresponds to the truth value of the proposition.

Of course I doubt your reading comprehension is really *that* bad. Rather, your failure to understand is an indication of your unwillingness to engage in meaningful dialogue, which is why I won't be responding further.

Moses is defined by Scripture as far less than Christ's emerging vectors of Moral Excellence written within Mankind - the OT and NT speaking of a far greater yet to come.

A simple example is that divorce finds room in Moses in the locality of Covenant Theology even as God hates divorce.... even as Moses sums to the ontological Floor and Ceiling of Man's potentiality demarcated in Deuteronomy 28 - the far higher Ends of Moral Excellence found up ahead through quite a different Means.

If the Moral Skeptic is going to reject Scripture's definitions of itself, of divorce per Scripture's claim of the insufficiency of Moses to yield Moral Excellence, and reject the locality of Covenant Theology, and reject Deuteronomy 28's ontological Floor and Ceiling of Man's potentiality, and reject the OT's (and NT's) definition of Moral Excellence as love's ceaseless reciprocity amid the unavoidably objective three vertices of Being as Trinity and Man converge - and reject the obvious lessons of both historicity and genre, then the incoherent charges of God liking - condoning - divorce and other such fragmentations of The Good will accompany various hints of occasionalism as the Moral Skeptic raises his voice against a Non-Christian paradigm.

The Moral Skeptic *must* distract and evade even as he must appeal to Non-Christian definitions and paradigms in doing so.

Such allows him to avoid embracing the rationally perceived - to avoid embracing the objective reality of *Being* and of Being's inescapable vertices - all three of them.

Rather, he simply hides behind Non-Christian definitions of Scripture all the while failing to overcome the objective reality of moral lines as he insists at some ontological seam *somewhere* that "I-Exist" suffers the fate of the disappearing-self - you know - that it's not objectively real.

But that dance of equivocation fails to hide the fact that Being's *actual* Archetype objectively emerges in three unavoidable vertices, as described earlier, and proceeds to delineate - subsume - all moral values.

Guest, all I want you to do is get all of your statements in line with this, because right now, they aren't. For example, again, you said this:

Why do we tend to see an act of rape as immoral? Some rule that says so? I very much doubt it.

What you're saying is that we don't need some rule to tell us rape is immoral because we apprehend that it is immoral. Your statement indicates that we discover it. That means it's objective.

Here's another example of an objective moral statement you made:

You seem to be saying that if morality is subjective, it must be arbitrary i.e. people can do what they want. But that doesnt accord to reality. We 'ought' to follow that subjective moral code because within the context of our society it promotes well being and reduces harm.

There are very clear "oughts" that apply to everyone in that statement: People doing whatever they want "doesn't accord to reality." Why? Because reality has "oughts" people ought to conform themselves to. You mentioned a few here: We ought to follow a specific code, well being is good, reducing harm is good. These are the things you say "accord with reality," regardless of what people want to do. That means they're objective. Like I said, you keep saying one thing, but then the rest of what you say points to the opposite position.

"Rape is immoral" is a great example of that; if that were an objective moral fact then you wouldn't have to defend God condoning/encouraging rape in the Bible.

If it weren't objectively immoral, then you wouldn't challenge me to defend it. It would just be one opinion. Yet you don't treat it like it's just an opinion. You treat it like it's a moral fact, such that if one goes against it, he needs to defend his position.

So you have it entirely backwards here. The only reason why someone would have to justify encouraging rape is if rape is objectively wrong. You don't need to justify subjective opinions. They're just your opinion.